Little Britches (7 page)

He just laughed, "No, Ma'am! That old pony wouldn't kill nobody. If he'd a fell off, Old Blue would of just stood there and waited for him to pick hisself up. You watch."

Then he said to me, "Didn't have no trouble with him, did ya, Little Britches?"

I said, "No, only he don't steer very good. I pulled the rein to make him go one way and he went the other."

He laughed again. "He's just rein wise and you ain't, that's all. Now you watch."

Then he turned around toward Mother, took his big hat off and said, "You watch, too, Ma'am, and you'll see how safe he is."

He kicked up one leg and flew right into the saddle without ever touching the stirrup. He whistled between his teeth as he went up, and Blue was gone with his feet kicking chunks of sod out behind him. The roan had hardly gone fifty feet before he sat right down on his hind legs and skidded, then the cowboy made him do more tricks than an organ grinder's monkey. They turned round and round in a circle, and from one side to the other so that it looked like dancing, then he would run a little way full tilt and be turned around before he got through sliding. I noticed that the cowboy never did pull on either rein; he just held them in his left hand up over the horse's neck, and whichever way he moved his hand, that was the way the roan went. Then he did one that made Mother and me both squeal. With the pony going lickety-larrup the cowboy fell right out of the saddle. He lit on the back of his shoulders, turned a half somersault and came up on his feet. The horse stopped so fast they were standing there side by side, as if they were just waiting for the mailman to come along.

The cowboy looked around at Mother and took off his hat. It had stayed on all the way through the somersault. He stepped back into the saddle again and trotted over to where we were. First he said to me, "Catch on, Little Britches?" Then he took off his hat to Mother again, and said, "Hiram Beckman's the name—they call me Hi." As he raced back toward the road he turned and waved his hat. Mother and I waved back.

I could hardly wait for Father to come in from the field to tell him about Hi and his blue roan horse. Father had been plowing way over across the tracks, and I didn't think he'd noticed us, because he never stopped to look when I could see him. I ran out to meet him when he came, and got all mixed up, I was trying to tell him so fast. He put his hand out and rumpled up my hair. I didn't know what he meant, but he said, "I guess you're a chip off the old chopping block. If you understand them, you never have any trouble making them understand you. You did all right on that horse. I knew you weren't afraid by the way he was acting." We walked along a little way, then he rumpled my hair again and said, "Your father was proud of you, Son." It was the first time he ever told me that, and I got a lump in my throat.

Then he told me that Hi might be a little bit of a show-off, but he was a good horseman; not so much because he could fall off and come up on his feet, but because he had been patient in training Blue. He said that Blue wasn't a bit afraid of Hi or he wouldn't have handled so smoothly, and that it was the best example he had ever seen of complete understanding between a man and a horse. "If you want to be a good horseman," he said, "the first thing you'll have to learn will be how a horse thinks, and next to think the same way yourself."

That Sunday was nice and warm. After the chores were done, Father said, "Mame, this is too nice a day to be cooped up in the house. If Fanny hadn't been plowing all week, I'd say let's hitch her up to the buckboard and take a drive up to the mountains, but she hasn't steadied down yet, and is making twice as much work of it as she needs to. So, what do you say—let's pack up a picnic lunch and a good book, and make a day of it down by the creek?"

We all went running around trying to help Mother get ready faster, when we'd have helped more by keeping out from under her feet. By ten o'clock the big lunch basket we had on the train was packed, and we were on our way down over the hill to Bear Creek. Father found a place where the creek made a wide curve through a grove of cottonwood trees and tumbled down in a cascade to a deep, clear pool, lined with willows. He showed us how to skip flat stones on the pool, and then we all went wading in the creek—even Mother and Hal. Mother took a puckering string from her petticoat, and a safety pin, so Philip could go fishing in the pool, while Father taught me how to whittle a willow stick into a whistle.

Grace and Muriel went up the creek to pick up colored stones while Mother unpacked the lunch basket and boiled water to make tea for herself and Father. Pretty soon Grace came running back, calling for us all to come quick, she'd found a whole bushel of pure gold and had left Muriel to guard it till we got there. We all went running but Father. He tried to act as if he were hardly interested, but he did walk faster than usual. All the way, Grace kept babbling about how we were rich now and could get a cow, and a pony to drive to school. When we got to where Muriel was, the sand near the shore was all covered with shiny yellow flakes. Father took some of it on his hand and looked at it carefully. Then he said, "Girlie, I wish you were right, but I believe it's mica. I think they call it fool's gold. I read about it once, but if I hadn't, I'd certainly be fooled, too."

After we had our picnic, Mother read to us. She didn't read like other people; she talked a book. I mean, if you were where you could hear her but couldn't see her, you'd be sure she was telling the story from memory instead of reading. And another thing different about Mother's reading was that she didn't care if you watched the book over her shoulder. I used to watch her eyes by the hour as she read. They would swoop across the page like a barn swallow across a hayfield, then she would look up and recite for a full minute before she looked back at the book again. When Mother read, we children had to be quiet and pay attention. We could do most anything we pleased with our hands, like making whistles, stringing dried berries for beads, or playing with dolls, but if one of us whispered, Father would snap his fingers. If he ever got to the third snap, Mother would close the book and we would do something else for a while.

I don't remember Mother ever reading anything I couldn't understand, and I never heard any of the others say so either, but I don't think many people would have read us the same books she did. That day it was
John Halifax, Gentleman
. Maybe she skipped spots we couldn't have understood, and maybe some of it drifted over our heads, but at least we remembered the stories she read. I think part of the reason was that we could raise a hand whenever we wanted an explanation of any word or situation.

I liked John Halifax a lot, but as the afternoon passed, I found my mind wandering from the tannery to the open range, where Hi might be punching cattle on his blue roan. The more I thought of Hi, the farther I left John behind. After Mother had explained to our Muriel Joy that Father took her name from that very book, I suggested that maybe I should leave early, to get the milk before it was too late. I had my plans all made, if Father said yes. He said it.

I started up over the hill in the direction of Aultland's, but as soon as I got over the shoulder of the first rise of ground, I headed for home as fast as I could scramble. I got the milk pail— a ten-pound lard bucket—and set it in the wagon. Next, I untied Fanny's halter rope and led her out there, too. I tied her to one of the wheels, with less than a foot slack in the rope, so she couldn't back away. Then I got her bridle, took one of the long reins from the driving harness, and fastened an end to each bit ring. By standing in the wagon box, I could reach her head all right, but I was afraid she would run away when I took her halter off, so first I tied the loose end of the rope good and tight around her neck. Fanny was one of those mares that fought the bit, but I didn't know it, nor what to do about it. I guess I just expected her to open her mouth wide and wait for me to lay the bit into it. When I showed her the bridle, she tossed her head and pulled back to the end of the rope. I leaned out of the wagon as far as I dared, holding the bit up toward her lips. When I got it close, she would bob her head up and down and swing around where I couldn't reach her.

As Fanny kept dancing away from the bridle, I kept one eye peeled for sight of the folks coming back from the creek. Usually, we would beg Mother to say poetry for us after she had stopped reading. Sometimes we could keep her going for an hour or so, but I was usually the one who did most of the begging. If they had got Mother going on a good, long one like "Horatius at the Bridge," I'd be all right, but if it was just a short one like "The Day is Done," I was sunk.

The more Fanny jerked her head around, the madder I got at her and the more afraid I was that I would get caught before I had a chance to try to ride her. I climbed out astraddle of the wheel and tried to push the bit in between her clenched teeth as her head bobbed. Finally I remembered that Father talked quietly to her when he made her plow, and decided to try it. I got down and patted her on the shoulder. As soon as her ears were pointed forward, I untied the halter rope and pulled it up easily till I had her chin right up to the wheel tire. Then I tied it tight and climbed back on the wagon. I kept telling her what a nice mare she was as I offered her the bit again. It made no impression; she still kept her teeth locked.

My time was running out. Even if it was Horatius, it couldn't last forever. I stuck one thumb in between her lips and gouged down with my thumb nail. That seemed to be something Fanny understood. She opened her teeth and took the bit. I was so excited I forgot to buckle the cheek strap, but grabbed up my bucket and shinned over onto her neck. When I had worked my way back to the withers, I untied her neck-rope, and we were on our way. I was quite surprised to find that she was easier to ride than the kicking donkey—and her withers were slim enough so that I could get a good knee hold.

Fanny didn't canter smoothly like the blue roan, and I didn't have any stirrup straps to balance myself with, but I was still on top when we got to Aultland's. I tied her way over at the end of the pole corral, hoping no one would see I had ridden her— and so that I would have the poles to climb up onto when I was ready to get on again.

I hadn't fooled anybody at Aultland's. I guess they had seen me coming up the road. Fred said, "I knew your paw was proud about you riding Hi's pony, but I'd a bet your maw wouldn't let you try Wright's mare bareback."

I remembered what he'd said before about betting his life I'd make a horseman—and I thought maybe if I acted like Mother knew already, they wouldn't bring the matter up later—so I said, "Oh, she saw me ride Hi's blue horse and she knows I'm going to be a horseman. She doesn't care."

Bessie made me take the milk in their can instead of in our lard bucket, and it was lucky she did. I tried to hold the can still on the way home, but Fanny seemed to be in a hurry to get there and ran like all get-out. The can got bouncing up and down and I was so busy holding on with my knees that I just had to let it bounce. The cover popped off and milk went everywhere. As we came out of the last gulch, there was the whole family coming up over the hill from the creek. The nerves in my bottom started to tingle—and it wasn't from rubbing on Fanny's back.

It was too late to turn back. I knew Father would have seen Fanny, because her feet were clattering on the adobe road like sticks on a snare drum. For just about a second I thought he might not have seen that I was on her, and that I might be able to dive off like Hi and come up on my feet. The ground was going by so fast that I was actually afraid to look down, let alone dive off, but I didn't want to admit it, and told myself I'd better not try it because I'd spill the rest of the milk.

I had planned to ride Fanny up to the wagon, so I could get off without dropping the milk can, but she had her own ideas about where she was headed for, and shot right into the barn. I could see I was going to be raked off if I didn't do something about it, and do it in a hurry. I dived head first at the manure pile, milk can and all. That's where Father found me when he came running around the corner of the barn a minute later. I wasn't hurt a bit, and I still had the empty milk can, but my best Buster Brown was kind of messed up.

Mother and the rest of the youngsters were only seconds behind Father. Mother was furious after she got over being scared, and demanded that Father give me a good, hard spanking. She said he could talk to me till he was black in the face, and it wouldn't do a bit of good, because my wickedness was so great that it had killed my conscience. Nothing but fear of bodily pain would save me from a life of crime.

Father didn't say a word, but just turned me over his knee while I was trying to tell him that I hadn't lied to be able to do what I wanted to, so hadn't injured my character any more. Father had a trick I never knew about before. He must have cupped his hand up some way, because every whack sounded like it was killing me, but they hardly stung at all. I howled loud enough to make up the difference.